John Evans, a Northwestern University founder and major donor and trustee, was governor of Colorado at the time of a brutal 1864 massacre of Native Americans. But until recently, the university has scarcely acknowledged that part of Evans’ past.

It’s Columbus Day. Over the years, Columbus Day has become something of a Rorschach test on what you think about our history with Native Americans or First Nations peoples. There are lots of places today where indigenous cultures are fighting to survive.

Archaeologists have hard evidence that humans lived in North America much earlier than previously thought, and a Chicago researcher played a key role in nailing down the dates.The earliest North Americans were long thought to be the Clovis people, who lived about 12,000-13,000 years ago.